


Five times Julian begged for it, and one time he didn't

by agentmoppet



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Choking, Dom/sub, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Reunions, Self-Hatred, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Relationships, healthy relationships (at the end)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:47:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/pseuds/agentmoppet
Summary: Julian keeps coming back to Asra, even though it hurts. Maybe it's because it reminds him... no matter how much Asra hates him, it can never possibly be as much as Julian hates himself.ORJulian copes with pain badly, until one day he doesn't. One day he finds himself instead, and it brings more happiness than he could possibly imagine.
Relationships: Asra/Julian Devorak
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	Five times Julian begged for it, and one time he didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags, please.
> 
> This was on anon for a hot minute because I like to keep my accounts mostly one-fandom, and I'm not sure I'll write for this again. But then it occurred to me that I'll be writing for the small fandom big bang in like two months, and I wrote that SPN fic in a fit of pique and despair recently... so idk, I guess if you follow me be prepared for the occasional unexpected and probably rare ship now and then.
> 
> This is my first and (so far) only Arcana fic, because I just could not get this out of my head. I just want Julian to have nice things and to love himself, you know? We're all about self actualization and growth over here, people. Just gotta get through the rough stuff first.

It’s dark outside, and Julian drunkenly staggers one too many times on his way to the shop. Not _a_ shop, _the_ shop, because there is no other. Not to him, not ever again. The smell of myrrh and hot coals gets him hard in a way that should break through the fog of desire and send him straight into shame, but it doesn’t. It just propels him forward. He wants this, wants the comfort of Asra’s body even though it hurts. Wants to be used.

Wants to pretend.

And so he stumbles onwards, and when Asra turns to find him halfway through the window, his face shadowed and unreadable, he suddenly finds his strength. Like a crutch, Asra’s silent judgment fuels him, and he lands on the shop floor, steps forward with a rakish grin, and says, “Did you miss me?”

Asra didn’t miss him. Asra never does, but at least he doesn’t lie about it, and Julian can make up whatever story in his head without running up against Asra’s own pretense. It’s just Julian here, Julian and his desires.

Ilya lurks beneath the surface, an identity hidden behind the whisper of a name, and Julian lets Ilya’s lips pay penance for his very existence.

“Ilya,” Asra breathes, pushing him lightly back against the window. “You know you can’t find what you’re looking for here.”

And still, his eyes roam Julian’s body, taking in the sharp open vee of his shirt with hunger. There’s appreciation in his gaze as much as there is reproach, and it’s equally the whip-crack of pain that keeps Julian returning as it is the thin trickle of praise. The two together are blinding. A hand caressing right before a slap. It’s what he needs, what he deserves.

“How do you know what I’m looking for?” Julian protests, falling to his knees on the hard wooden floor. Sense memory overwhelms him, and his mouth starts to water. “Maybe you’re exactly what I want.”

“I know I’m what you want,” Asra murmurs, fingers threading through Julian’s auburn hair, twisting just enough to hurt. It’s a benediction of pain, and Julian submits. “But we deserve more than this illusion.”

“Don’t tell me what I deserve,” Julian whispers, but already his costume is failing him, the mask of rakish assurance vanishing in place of stammered words, of uncertainty. “If you want to say no, say no.”

Asra is silent, and Julian doesn’t need to open his eyes to know the look on his face. Cold. Closed-over. Nothing like the emotions Julian wears on his sleeve, nothing like the way he begs for any scraps Asra will give him.

Sometimes, on his darkest nights, Julian wonders what Asra begs for. Then he remembers it’s nothing; he begs for nothing because he needs nothing. He has everything.

Julian reaches blindly for Asra’s waistband, closing his lips around Asra’s cock with a desperate sigh, and gives him one thing more.

*

The next time it happens, Julian isn’t drunk, but his footsteps are no more steady than if he was. He leans against the cobblestone arch by the head of the street, gazing down at the tiny shop. It’s three in the morning, and he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. All he knows is the ache in his chest won’t disappear, and if he tries to drown it anymore he’ll forget how to breathe.

There are good men in this world, he’s sure of it. Just as sure as he is that he is not one of them. Even if he finds the cure tomorrow, saves the city, saves the world, he’ll still be rotten. He’ll still grasp for love in all the wrong places, fall to his knees with his mouth open for the only sacrament he deserves. He wonders, sometimes, if the reason he keeps coming back to Asra and all the pain Asra brings him is because it reminds him. It reminds him that, for all that the world hurts, for all that Asra’s hatred of him hurts, at least there is no one in this world who can hate Julian as much as himself.

He knocks on the front door, arms folded as he leans in the narrow frame. It’s something of a heady delight, making Asra get out of bed to let him in. Making him involved in this whether he wants to be or not. 

But then he feels the cold touch of Asra’s magic, curious and wary as it assesses the identity of his late night visitor, just before it retreats. Julian sighs. Asra isn’t coming for him; he should have known.

He climbs through the kitchen window and trips at the last second, landing with a yelp before the stove and frightening the salamander so much a lick of flame escapes, narrowly missing the wall.

If the house caught alight, would Asra come to him then? Or would he watch, impassive and disappointed, as Julian failed to put out the flame and burned the whole thing down.

Julian climbs the stairs, footstep by heavy footstep, growing lighter the closer he comes to Asra’s bedroom. When he reaches it, he finds Asra awake, sitting at the window and watching the city below. He can probably hear the laughter from the Rowdy Raven from here. Perhaps, some nights, he even hears Julian himself, but Julian will only pretend that when he’s at his most vulnerable.

Asra turns to him, and the disappointment in Julian’s imagination finds form. Asra’s brow furrows, and he sniffs the air.

“Are you drunk?”

“Barely a drop,” Julian says, winking. “Why? Inviting me in for a nightcap?”

“I’m not inviting you in at all.”

Julian’s smile falls from his face. “Then send me away.”

Asra doesn’t do that either. Julian takes a step inside, then another. It feels like he’s walking on air.

Asra opens his mouth, lips twisted in a grimace that tells Julian exactly what he’s going to say. And so Julian blurts out, “Fuck me,” just so he doesn’t have to hear the rejection.

Silence descends, charged with shock, and it isn’t enough. Asra’s surprise won’t be enough, and so Julian says, “Please.”

The grimace becomes a frown, anger twisting Asra’s usually calm, beautific features into something cold, and Julian knows he has him. He sighs, hands dropping to his side as he waits for Asra’s command.

“Take your clothes off.”

Moving in a trance, Julian obeys, and with that choice the weight of the world disappears entirely. He’s floating, anchored only by the sharp pain of Asra’s fingers breaching him, slick with oil. The heady ache of Asra’s hand around his neck, holding him down, and the thrust of Asra’s cock inside him.

By the end of it, Julian thinks maybe he’s disappeared as well, and it’s exactly how he wants to be.

*

When Julian appears again, the name Ilya is caught in the back of his throat, and he wants to choke on it. He’s barely through the front door, the key Asra gave him last time cold like ice in his palm, before he’s falling to his knees.

“Please, Asra,” he begs, and for once he doesn’t even know what he’s begging for.

He thinks, maybe, it isn’t this. It isn’t the hot slide of Asra’s cock in his mouth. It isn’t the twist of hatred to Asra’s lips, or the harsh pull of fingers in his hair.

It might be the hand that tightens around his neck, the choke-hold of strength that anchors him to life, to the sheer necessity to breathe. In and out, through his nose, Asra’s hips thrusting faster into him while his hand tightens and he almost loses control. It might be that, but Julian thinks it isn’t quite right.

It isn’t until Asra is coming down his throat, the sharp, salty tang swallowed over and over, convulsively, that he realizes why the hand on his throat confused him. Asra pulls away, and Julian rubs his neck tenderly, tracing the line of Asra’s fingers, eyes downcast, as he searches for the words to ask for what he really wants.

“Asra,” he begins, voice rasping and hoarse, but Asra has already turned away.

“Why are you doing this, Ilya?” he spits out, more emotion than usual in his words.

Julian stares at him, wincing at the name and struggling to read the meaning behind what Asra says. There are always layers to a magician’s words, even when they pretend to be straight forward and true. Julian took a long time to realize that, and he didn’t learn it here, in their nights together. This was knowledge that belonged to the day, to sneaking glances in the library, to the carefully cultivated attunement he feels to Asra’s every sigh, to every glare Asra gives the Count and Countess. It took him a while to discover, but Julian gets it now. However, he suspects it would take him even longer to know what it means. Perhaps a lifetime, and Julian knows he doesn’t have that.

“Because I want to,” Julian says slowly, and his lips part, preparing to throw the last remaining shred of his pride away— _ha! Like he ever had any_ —and beg for Asra’s touch. 

Nothing fancy, just his hand on Julian’s skin. Lingering. Unhurried.

But then Asra says, “Get out,” and his voice is so low, so broken, that Julian goes.

As he does, he thinks of sneaking glances, of the Count who controls them both, of the aching weight of responsibility and the unrelenting pain of failure.

It occurs to him that maybe Asra would beg for something, but it wouldn’t be from Julian.

Never from Julian.

*

Julian swears this is the last time. He swears it as he walks down the cobblestone street, thoughts racing with cures and failures and all the many ways that he is not the man he says he is. Julian was and always will be Ilya, daring and dashing and a fucking liar. Unable to cure the plague, unable to save anyone, but somehow managing to convince the world that they’re wrong, instead of him. 

He swears it as he climbs through the lower window, not stumbling this time, certain in his movements because he’s done this so many times before. _Been_ this so many times before. This man.

Broken. Lost. Lonely.

This path is so well-trodden, he can walk it asleep, walk it drunk. Walk it with the fine ache of fuzz that buries his mind and tells him to quit. Quit everything. Quit it all.

Run away, like you always do, Ilya.

But when he straightens his clothing and whirls around to ascend the stairs, he finds Asra waiting for him. Finds the magician’s calm, passive gaze directed at him like he knew Julian was coming. Knew, and was waiting.

“You were close today,” Asra says lightly, referring—Julian assumes—to the cure he nearly discovered, but for the minor side effect of occasional death.

“I suppose that can be considered close,” Julian agrees, because it’s the closest he’s ever come. The closest any of them have.

This plague will kill them all, and it will be Julian’s fault.

Asra’s glance flicks to the kettle on the stove, and Julian’s heart stops. Is he—? Is Asra going to—?

He can picture it now: Asra carefully arranging two sets of cups, a matching set, the gentle aroma of lapsang souchong drifting from the curling steam. 

Julian imagines it, all in the space of a breath, and for all the things he’s pictured here between these walls, he never pictured this. All at once, he aches with something he never thought to want.

But Asra’s gaze returns to his, calm, level, and when he steps forward there is no tea. There is no offering of tea or company or kindness. But there is heat—the warmth of Asra’s hands, of his hungry gaze, of his cock. There is even the warmth of Julian, his own hardness straining against the leather front of his breeches, and Asra’s hand closing around him in a rare offering. It isn’t what Julian wants, not even close, but it’s there, and he takes it.

Asra pushes him back against the wall, hand working between them, eyes closed so Julian can imagine the soft expression that could never possibly be behind those eyelids. Asra gives Julian what he needs, and Julian thinks: he’ll be back. He’ll always be back.

*

Blood seeps through his fingers as Julian clutches his side, staggering down the alley to the tiny shop at the end. Asra must see him coming, or feel him, because when Julian arrives, he’s waiting. Standing in the doorway of the shop and watching him arrive, face unreadable.

“You wouldn’t believe what those leeches will do when you aren’t looking,” Julian says, leaning his free arm against the archway and giving Asra a rakish grin.

Asra rolls his eyes, hands already pressing over the wound, assessing. When he crooks his finger, Julian follows, drifting towards the warmth of the fire like it’s all he ever wanted.

Perhaps it is.

Perhaps it’s time he admitted that.

With an ache in his chest that has nothing to do with his injury, Julian watches Asra’s clever fingers as they murmur spell after spell, cleaning him up, healing him, bandaging the lingering wound. When he’s finished, his eyes lift to Julian’s, and Julian can almost hear the name Ilya spoken on his tongue—Asra’s refusal to see him as anything more than his worst self. His refusal to accept Julian’s lies.

Strangely, it doesn’t hurt. Julian doesn’t know what that means.

He leans down, claiming Asra’s mouth in a kiss that makes the magician rock back on his heels in shock. Now that he thinks about it, he’s never kissed Asra before. He’s never dared to believe he’d be allowed to, and so he grins into the kiss, catching Asra around the waist and deepening it. As Asra slowly softens, allowing the intrusion with the same grace and resignation he allows all of Julian’s intrusions, Julian silently begs him for the things he can never say.

When they come together this time, it’s different, and that’s how Julian knows. With a desperate clarity that could never be present until now, he realizes how fucked up it all is. How Asra can never, never give him what he wants.

He thought, once, that Asra would at least give him what he needs, but Julian has changed. Is changing. And he knows now that what he needs is to walk away.

“Asra,” he says, smoothing down the front of his newly-buttoned shirt.

Asra’s eyes lift to his, cool and steady. He doesn’t even look like he’s worked up a sweat. The bandage feels smooth beneath Julian’s touch, good as new, barely disturbed by their movements.

“I’m not coming back,” Julian says, lifting his eyes finally. The gaze he finds is almost gentle in its pity, and he feels the rough edge of a rueful laugh, deep in his stomach. Asra is right not to believe him, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“Okay, Ilya.”

“I’m leaving the city.”

Asra doesn’t even blink, doesn’t even look surprised. It’s as though he’s already resigned to the next time they do this, the next time they fuck, dancing around each other in a web of pretense.

“Goodbye, Ilya” he says, already looking away.

Julian watches him, taking in the lines of his jaw, the way the moonlight hits his otherworldly eyes. He’ll miss him, even though he shouldn’t. 

“Goodbye, Asra.”

*

Asra waits for Ilya to return, and it isn’t until the news of the cure reaches his ears that he understands what he missed. For once, Ilya was telling the truth.

He’s gone.

The awareness of what that means to him begins with a dull ache in his temple, easily dismissed as a reading headache, and he begs away from the palace to rest. Despite the jubilance, despite the way the entire city is celebrating, he simply wants to be alone. Nadia gives him a knowing look, but he squints in response, unable to think beyond the pounding of his head.

By the time he’s home, it’s moved into his chest, his entire body aching with grief he can’t express.

Ilya is gone. Everyone who matters is gone.

Why did Asra never tell him to stay?

He waits all night, drinking until his vision goes fuzzy. It doesn’t take long; he isn’t a drinker. Whenever Ilya would offer, he would roll his eyes and take the high ground. Looking down on him. Disappointed in him.

Pretending the self-hatred in Ilya’s eyes wasn’t a mirror to Asra’s own soul.

Asra knows there was often hatred in his expression, but it wasn’t directed to Ilya. It was never to Ilya.

He waits all night for someone who never comes, and who never will again.

For the first time, Asra wonders if maybe the path of silence he took wasn’t the high ground at all. The magician, his guide, is never straight forward, and there is every chance the high ground he so coveted was nothing more than fear. The lowest of low. An illusion, and nothing more.

He begins to see him everywhere. In the flash of auburn hair at the market. In his reflection at the fountain when he rinses his face. He even sees him in the magician’s realm, blue eyes dancing with mirth as they reflect a world of constellations. Asra has always wanted someone who would never leave him, and he had that. He had that, and he proved it daily in the only way he knew how—by pushing Ilya away. By making Ilya promise again and again, without words, that he would return.

Asra never thought he would truly leave.

In his dreams, Asra imagines what it would have been like if he’d done what he always wanted. If he’d begged Ilya to stay.

*

Asra thinks it’s another illusion at first—a crop of red hair, dazzling in the sunlight, that will turn out to be nothing more than a scarf. A hood. A flash of sunset in a hidden mirror.

But then he sees him. He sees blue eyes alight with laughter, sees a rakish grin that he knows oh so well. Asra knows that face. He knows what it looks like staring up at him with desire and hope and something deeper, something neither of them could ever admit. He knows how it looks now—masked with false confidence, a dazzling lie.

Ilya spots him through the crowd, and his expression softens. The eye patch offsets his charm with a worldly sharpness, but it isn’t the patch that leaves Asra reeling; it’s the lack of it. Even with the sharpness of a rogue, the charming smile of an actor, there is a softness to Ilya’s expression that was never there before. A vulnerability that doesn’t try to hide.

“Ilya,” he breathes, and he watches as Ilya’s eyes fall to his lips, reading his name on Asra’s mouth.

For once, Ilya doesn’t flinch at the sound. Instead, he winds his way through the crowd, movements growing faster with urgency as the crowd presses against him, as Asra fights to reach him too. 

“Asra!” he calls, delight in his voice, and Asra’s heart leaps into his mouth.

They come to a stop in front of each other, Ilya’s chest heaving with exertion, and Asra’s own jaw slack with… confusion? Fear? 

Hope?

The magician is never straight forward, and Asra doesn’t know what he feels. But for once, he won’t deny that he feels it.

“Ilya, you came back,” he breathes, reaching for his ex lover and stopping abruptly with the sudden certainty that his touch isn’t welcome.

Ilya’s face softens even more, and he reaches out, clasping Asra’s hand in his and holding it to his chest. When he speaks, it’s calm and sure in a way Ilya never is. “It’s all right, Asra,” he says, the words ending in a chuckle that Asra feels through his chest. “I won’t beg you anymore. I’m just pleased to see an old friend.”

Asra’s stomach drops, and he watches the confusion dance on Ilya’s face; his own must be a sight. So many emotions warring with each other. So much want.

Need.

“Were we ever friends?” he manages to get out, the words sour in his mouth as he acknowledges how he treated Ilya. What he demanded from him.

The truth he knew but never outwardly returned.

Ilya’s face falls, and he takes a step back, letting go of Asra’s hand. The crowd surges around them, bumping them. “Perhaps not,” he says, mouth twisted in a wry grimace. “You look well.”

As he says the words, something in his expression falters, like he’s suddenly realized the lie in the routine phrase. Asra doesn’t look well. He knows he doesn’t. He hasn’t for a very long time.

Ever since Ilya left him.

“No, I don’t, Ilya.” He steps forward, voice rough, and grabs hold of Ilya’s wrist before the crowd can sweep him away.

There’s hesitation there, an unwillingness to fall back into old patterns. Warmth surges in Asra’s chest; Ilya did it, he really did it. He found himself somehow, and he never needed Asra at all.

But Asra needs him. He always has, and he needs to find a way to speak to that part of Ilya who might believe it. The part that returned over and over because he sensed the truth.

“You never needed me,” he says gently, noting the pleased flush that rises on Ilya’s face. “But I need you,” he confesses, the words tripping over themselves, his calm exterior failing him as he reveals a part of himself he’s always fought to keep hidden. “And I’m sorry.”

Ilya’s eye grows wide, a single, bright spot of blue against the light of the setting sun. “Asra,” he breathes, his hand coming up to cup Asra’s jaw, and Asra’s name sounds like a prayer in his mouth. 

“Please,” Asra begs, stepping in close. “I don’t have any right to ask, but… please. Please stay this time.”

It’s as though the crowd fades away, the very air around them softening, caressing them with all the touches they ever denied. Ilya’s palm traces his cheek, fingers trailing a line down his neck—far more gentle than Asra has ever been, and yet he makes a silent promise to become that. To become all that Ilya needs from him. 

“Oh, Asra,” Ilya says, not a trace of stammer in his voice. “That’s all I ever wanted from you.”

His mouth descends on Asra’s, lips soft as the two of them fall into the memory of what they once had. What they never had.

What they will have.

Warmth spreads through Asra’s chest, aching with tenderness that lingers even as the two of them break apart. Ilya smiles at him, and Asra is lost in the happiness on his face. Happiness he’s never seen until now.

“Julian!” the baker cries out. “You’re back!”

Ilya grins at him, fingers warm as they slide against Asra’s skin, teasing the edge of the shirt. “I am,” he agrees, pride emanating from every word. “But, please, call me Ilya.”


End file.
